INTRODUCTION TO DECONTRUCTIVISM

• Text and type in a critical way
• What its role is it the construction of meaning
• Introduction to deconstruction

Examples of deconstuctive graphic design


Became a dominant mode of Graphic design in the 80's and 90's
'Deconstructionist'
Practise relying on theory and realised in practise.


Approach coming out of post modernism - A technique, is of post modern age


Po-Mo attitude - questions conventions
an aesthetic - Multiplicity of styles and approaches




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TASK
5 examples of Post Modern design - Write a couple of sentences


Elements of postmodernism - Exhaustion, pluralism, pessimism (everything gone wrong)  and disillusionment ( an idea of absolute knowledge). High art and popular culture.
Post Modern aesthetics - Bricolage (mix and combine) , re-using images (parody and irony)


A definition:


Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. It emphasises the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial. Postmodernism has influenced many cultural fields, including literary criticism, sociology, linguistics, architecture, visual arts, and music.

"God save the queen" - The sex pistols

A combination of high and popular culture. Combining a range of mediums. Referencing the British national anthem, using photo, newspaper, and music to create an image; Bricolage.  His designs weren't about creativity but an attack on what is meant to be artistic.

Richard Hamilton

Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?

This modern piece forms a collage of mass consumptions and the consumerist society we live in; using pins ups, comics, films and even convenience food; bricolage. A piece of work filled with popular culture,  embracing everyday art. The Pop Art movement rejects abstract expressionism and instead celebrates material consumer culture.

Marcel Duchamp

'Fountain'

Described his work as ready made, he simply put the urinal used in 'fountain' into a place in which art was displayed, and suddenly an inanimate everyday object became 'art'. Proving anything, in the right context, can be considered just that.

Barbara Kruger

A montage artist 

'Your body is a battle ground'

This is about identity, she is focusing on the construction of people. 

An idealised view of how someone should look through the media, this image is post modern due to it's combination of photography, print, and the newspaper media type.

Andy Warhol

'Campbells soup cans'

Using mundane commercial objects to create art, combination of high and popular culture. He repeats the image, produced in a 'new' method, to create a mass duplication. The 'copy of a copy' apparent, each image exactly the same.

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Deconstruction


Mode of questioning and differencing
Approach associated with post structuralism and Jacques Derrida (influence by deconstructionism)


Blended with 20's Russian Constructivism = Deconstructionism in architecture


Visually interpreted in Graphic design = Sometimes called deconstructionism


Design, Writing, research.org
1st essay good explanation
Book layout - playing with conventions of how the book should appear


Cranbrook academy of art, US, Invented deconstructionism in graphic design


'Not a style, a way of analysing'


Definition:
Approach to texts which analyses their systems of representation - the systems which frame their communication.


Hidden contradictions between surface level meaning


Binary oppositions:
e.g speech VS writing
Privilege one over the other
Written language only exists because of speech, Just there to copy speech
Original VS copy
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TASK


What frames Typography
What elements of type influence content
e.g Book content = Idea's and message
Form = Type and image = now communicated
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'The crystal Goblet'
Design is secondary to content
You should try and be the crystal Goblet


Typography conventions:

• Legibility
• Serifs
• San
• Spacing
• Page setting

Affects content?

Secondary?

Create content?

Depends on purpose ok book

Just transmitting content as voiced?

Form (type) converses as much as content

takes what seen to be natural

Book seems to be just words to read

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TASK

Refer to 'text document'

Read it - highlight

500 word summary on key point it makes, role of functions of type in communication and meaning

Use key points to discuss one piece of deconstructionist graphic design.

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Roland Barthes
Death of the author


Structuralism - a response
Levi Strauss
Barthes
Saussure


Examples Cranbrook
Visual Language special Issue
'French current of the letter'
1978 - journal deconstructs itself
Challenging in the way we read it




FD fella: exhibition posters, detroit focus
Gallery - 'anti mastery' - smash controls of sleek design

Allen Hori : typography as a discourse poster 1989

No order, doesn't start anywhere, avoids conventions

Barry Deck, Template gothic, 1990

David Carson, Ray gun magazine, 1992 - 1995

Overwhelming 

Explosion

Stylistic

No order

Architecture

Peter Eisenman house III 1970

Deconstructionist exhibit MOMA 1998

Frank Gehry, house, Santa Monica, 1977

Peter Eisenman tokyo office block

Highlights tha you can break representation, by building their exposing

Bernard Tschami

Le parc de la Villette Paris

1982 - 1992

Points, surfaces, lines

Daniel Libeskind

Jewish Museum

Berlin

1989 - 96

Dertida Glas

Designer Richard Echersley

Marinetti : words in freedom

El Lissitzsky for the voice 1923

To define:

To destabilise given meanings and representations which have been created. To expose this system of limitations.